Friday, May 9, 2008

Future Public Speaker.....

Today Mr. Ian Shannon gave yet another speech in class. This one was about the Australian bird "The Mallee Fowl" which, by the way, was a very interesting animal. Although it is a bit of a pain getting these speeches ready for Ian, I end up learning quite a bit from them so I never regret having to help him. This time around, I let Ian do more than usual. I helped him search for articles on the internet and showed him how to print them out. Then I had him read the articles and we chose the parts that we wanted to put in his speech. He also helped me make the poster. Ian has this amazing confidence about him that I envy. Im sure at that age I was probably the same way..... it is sad that we cant all keep some of the desireable traits we had when we were young. Ian just simply doesnt care what anyone thinks. He knows that he is GREAT and so he just gets up there and starts speaking. He even threw in additional information that wasnt in the speech...."in case you were all wondering" he said..... He surprised me by stopping during the speech to point out information on the poster board which he had never rehearsed. He was just ad-libbing as he went along giving out extra tidbits and answering questions at the end like an expert. Ok Im done bragging. Here is a couple of video clips. I wish I had recorded the whole speech but those dang batteries ran out on me.....

“It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson